


Princess by Dawn

by thewordsleep



Series: pretty in pink [1]
Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Pennywise (IT), Boys in Skirts, Crossdressing, Lipstick & Lip Gloss, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-02
Updated: 2019-11-02
Packaged: 2021-01-16 22:40:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,484
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21278900
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thewordsleep/pseuds/thewordsleep
Summary: The problem started in Eddie's senior year of high school, when Bev threw an old skirt of hers into the bushes at the quarry.Or actually, that's when the problem resurfaced - the problemactuallystarted with the music video for 'I Want to Break Free' by Queen.





	Princess by Dawn

**Author's Note:**

> I think I just better bite the bullet and post this before I can change my mind. Title is from king for a day by green day

The problem started in their senior year of high school, when Bev threw an old skirt of hers into the bushes at the quarry; a flowery printed, flowy thing that she had for years and years but never once wore, because her dad bought it for her to replace her habit of wearing pants all the time.

Or actually, that's when the problem resurfaced - the problem _actually_ started with the music video for 'I Want to Break Free' by _Queen_. Go figure.

Eddie was flipping through channels while his mom was making dinner when he saw it. A man in a dark wig and a pink tank and short black leather skirt, strutting around with a vacuum cleaner in heels and a thick moustache.

Eddie leaned in close, intrigued. Not only 'cause the song was killer, but because these were _men_ wearing _women's clothes_ \-- and wearing it well (mostly in the blond's case) -- he didn't know men could do that!

But then, why _couldn't_ men do that? They were just clothes, really, so if a guy was wearing them, then they were that guy's clothes. Right?

And the makeup, well, he decided it was a lot like face painting. _Kiss_ did it. The scary guy from _Twisted Sister_ did it. So why not? It looked nice on them, he thought, and Eddie liked getting his face painted.

He watched until his mommy came in and huffed at the screen, grabbing the remote to change the channel because all of Queen were _deviants_ and wrong and bad for her little Eddie-bear.

But the idea stayed with Eddie, because it didn't _feel_ wrong, no matter which way he looked at it. And if Eddie had managed to record most of the video on the end of his old Christening tape in the VHS before she came in, well, his mommy never needed to know.

\--

One morning before school, when Eddie was twelve, he felt brave enough to sneak into his mom's room after she went to work.

"This is a dumb, stupid, fuck-ing _stupid_ idea," he muttered to himself nervously as he fished through her wardrobe. "Dumb, stupid, weird…"

He trailed off as he pulled out a long, silky, green dress that had pink hearts on it. It was loud and, guiltily he thought, tacky. But he still went to her freestanding mirror as he slipped it over his head.

Obviously, it looked ridiculous on him. The length bunching at his feet and only one strap hooked and hanging on for dear life on his shoulder.

"I may as well be wearing a tent," Eddie groaned into his hands.

Eddie flung the dress off his head and went for a skirt instead, the short, pleated blue one his mom sometimes wore when they went shopping in the summertime. He shucked off his shorts for this one, his face going hot as he tugged the waistline in, leftover material clutched in his fist until Eddie could properly see what the skirt _would_ look like if it fit him.

And the result was… good. It was good. He tucked in the end so that the hem ended higher on his thighs and yeah, yeah. It looked… nice on him.

"I look nice," Eddie said shakily to his reflection, and blushed.

Eddie's breathing had gone a little ragged, and when the doorbell sounded he panicked and tossed the clothes back into the wardrobe, tugged his shorts back on and rushed downstairs.

He slammed the front door open and was met with Richie's confused and far-too-close face.

"Hey, cutie--"

"What?" Eddie bit out, the door clicked shut behind him.

"What do you mean what?" Richie frowned, but there was a smile tugging at his lips. "I'm picking you up for school, numb nuts."

"Oh."

Richie stared at him funny. "Are you okay? You're all red," he pressed the back of his hand to Eddie's cheek before he could swat it away, "and breathing funny," Richie grinned suddenly, an idea forming, "oh, Eddie _Spaghetti_."

Eddie did swat his hand away then, before Richie could pinch his cheek. "Shut up," he bit out, but his voice was unsteady.

"My sweet little Eds, jerking it for the first time," Richie feigned wiping a year from his eye. "Ah, I wish I had a camera."

"Oh God, shut _up_." Eddie's heart raced for some godforsaken reason, reaching for his inhaler when he realized, "Where's my…?"

Richie smiled toothily, wrapping an arm around Eddie's shoulders. "You mean you got so carried away you forgot your fanny pack? Your most treasured possession?" His voice brimmed with awe and pride.

Eddie shrugged off his arm and turned for the door, mortified beyond belief. Though he supposed it was way better for Richie to think he was doing _that_ than what he was actually doing. Eddie sighed, and reached for the handle only to find it was locked. Fuck.

"_Fuck,_" he said under his breath.

"No key, Eds?" Richie asked, amused.

"No. And don't call me that--shit," Eddie cursed, "shit, my bag, my _inhaler_."

"Worry not, fair maiden," Richie said in his pompous British guy voice, clapping Eddie on the back. "I've scoured this area hundreds of times before and have found a secret passage inside. Away!"

He grabbed Eddie's hand and lead him to the side of the house, looking up at the window of his room, and the tree adjacent it.

Eddie swallowed. "You expect me to climb…" he trailed off, his hand involuntarily squeezing Richie's.

Richie beamed. "A true knight would never force a maiden to do a gentleman's job," he lifted Eddie's hand and smacked a loud kiss to the back of it. "All I ask is a boon for my service."

Eddie couldn't help but crack a smile, tugging his hand free from Richie's as he tried to ignore the heat of the kiss still on the back of it. "Which is…?"

"A ticket to the one-man Eddie show, obviously," Richie said quickly in his own voice, his eyebrows waggling up and down.

"Ha ha, sir Rich-tard," Eddie said dryly, ignoring his heart's insistent thumping and shoving Richie toward the tree, "just get my fanny pack and bag, would ya?"

Richie laughed, and was about half way up when he called down, "That wasn't a no, Eds!"

Eddie said nothing as he leaned against the tree, but pressed the back of his hand - the one Richie'd kissed - to his own smiling mouth.

\--

Aside from one nervous peruse into his mom's makeup bag (which he didn't even know she _had_), Eddie never did it again, and tried really hard not to think about it for the next few years.

He couldn't always help it, though, as he sometimes just idly wondered about skirts and heels and makeup. He wondered what cut he liked, what colors. And, more often than he liked to admit, he wondered if he would be pretty enough. Like the girls Richie joked about perving at at school.

_"I'd like to see up **that** skirt, baby,"_ Eddie imagined him leering, lifting up the back of his skirt with a stick or something.

The thoughts tended to spiral from there, and didn't always happen at the most convenient of places. The worst part was that no matter what he was thinking about, dress or no, it was always _Richie_ in his head.

Evenin the privacy of Eddie's own fucking mind, he couldn't get away from that asshole; there was no escape from the wonderful, beautiful, idiotically _unstoppable_ force that was Richie Tozier.

Though, each fantasy ended about the same: with Eddie flushed bright red, and a pillow, or a bag, or a hand, or _something_ smothering his face, willing the thoughts to go away.

It worked, but only sometimes.

That was, until he was seventeen. When Bev balled up her skirt and threw it as far as she could at the quarry, yelling, "Fuck you!" While flipping off the sky, as she jumped into the water with all of her clothes on. Ben and Mike laughed and jumped in after her.

"At least _think_ about your carbon footprint, people," Stan called after them, but soon jumped in anyway.

Only then, as Eddie lay in the grass between Bill and Richie, did he let himself think about it. And the thought was relentless.

_That skirt would fit me,_ the little voice in his head insisted, _She won't ever know, she doesn't even want it, it'll just lie there, unused, **forever**. Take it, you have to take it._

Unconsciously, he pressed the back of his hand to his lips, as he tended to do now and then.

"Earth to Eds," Richie said, snapping him out of his daze, "Spaghetti? You in there?"

He waved his hand in Eddie's face and made to pinch his nose before his hand was slapped away. "Huh?"

Richie rolled his eyes fondly. "I saaaid, are we still on for the weekend? Operation: Slumber Party?"

"Slumber parties are for girls," Eddie said half-heartedly.

_"You're_ a girl," Richie retorted with a soft elbow to his ribs before leaning his head back on his arms. Richie had (annoyingly) grown into himself, long, spindly limbs filled out with firm, lean muscle. Eddie tried hard not to stare, but it was basically impossible.

He shook his head and stared back up at the sky.

"Seriously though," Richie said, turning to face him, "I'm still sleeping over, right?"

"Oh, yeah," Eddie answered. "Of course."

"Cool cool," Richie grinned warmly at him, and Eddie had to look away before he turned red all over.

"Does it c-count as a slu-umber party if-f it's just the two of y-you?" Bill asked, smirking at them.

"I dunno," Richie said while scratching his chin, he'd been the first of them besides Mike to grow some stubble, faint as it may be. "Maybe I'll ask your mom when she comes to mine later."

"D-dick."

"Nutsack."

_"Nutsack?"_

"Hey, you are what you eat, Denbrough."

"What does th-that even…"

As they rambled, Eddie drifted back into his thoughts, trying to memorize where Bev had aimed.

\--

Two days later, he was at the pharmacy checking out his mom's medications, and impulsively grabbed a cheap looking red lipstick sitting on the counter and threw it into the mix.

When the man at the register raised his brow, Eddie coughed, muttered something about "mommy's date night" and rushed away with his purchases.

And instead of going home, he went to the quarry.

"I'm not weird, I'm not weird, I'm not weird," Eddie told himself as he scooped up Bev's discarded skirt and shook out the dirt and leaves. Once satisfied, he hid it inside the same pharmacy bag that had his lipstick.

_ **His** lipstick**,** _ Eddie thought with a rush.

His mother was gone for the week. She'd been doing that once a month for two years now, to go and take care grandma. She used to insist Eddie go with her, or get someone to watch him, but since he confronted her about giving him fake pills she tended not to test her luck as much. Which was amazing for Eddie, since it was the only time he could really have the house to himself, aside from when she went to work.

Even when she was gone though, he still worried that she could somehow see him. Could tell her little Eddie-bear was being a filthy, no-good deviant.

But this time, he wasn't going to let that stop him.

Eddie passed her bedroom, then on a whim he quickly ran in to grab her tall mirror. With it under his arm, Eddie rushed to his room and slipped the lock on his door (that he insisted on installing a few years back). He set the mirror down and went to sit on his bed, squeezing his eyes shut for a second.

"Oh fuck, oh fuck," he whispered shakily before reaching for the bag.

Just then, a loud scraping sound at his window made Eddie shout and jump from his bed.

"Christ!" He placed a hand on his chest as his heart began to beat wildly. Eddie's eyes were trained on the window sill, but the tree outside simply swayed as the wind gusted loudly into his room.

"Fuck you, tree," he said numbly with relief, and sat back down. "Okay. Oookay."

Eddie reached into the bag and took the skirt out, his fingers trailing reverently over the material.

Ideally, he would wash it before wearing it, but he didn't know how to work the machine, since his mom "liked doing things like that for him" - translation: she didn't like him knowing how to take care of himself. Eddie shook his head and lifted the skirt.

The material was soft and thin, pale pink with elaborate blue flowers cascading around, it wasn't loud or garish, it was light and beautiful. Eddie loved it, and felt a little guilty for that, knowing how much Bev hated it.

He stood, hands shaking as he slowly slid his shorts down, treacherous nerves creeping up into the back of his throat.

"This is happening****. ** ** _This is happening,"_ was the mantra in his head.

His breathing was getting a little shallow, but Eddie refused to reach for his inhaler, feeling that any time he gave into his old habits, he was giving a little piece of himself back to his mother.

"I'm not sick," Eddie said firmly instead, eyes closed. "I'm not sick, and I'm _not_ weird."

He kicked his shorts away, grabbing the skirt and pulling it up his legs in one breath. He clasped the button on its side, taking a gulp of air as he let it sit on his hips for a moment, before reaching for the lipstick.

He uncapped it, a little thrown by the smell of cheap wax as he reached for his handheld mirror - the one with ninja turtle stickers on the back that Richie'd stuck on a long time ago, sitting in his room and saying he was giving it "character".

For some reason, Eddie's breath caught a bit at the silly memory. He shrugged it off and touched the lipstick to his bottom lip. Frowning, he found he had to press in hard to get any pigment.

"What the fuck, this color sucks," Eddie muttered to himself. He chose the deepest red, but the color was brighter than it looked and harder to apply. Still, he kept on mashing it against his lips until they were completely covered and smelt like a melted candle. "Fucking cheap ass pharmacy."

"I think it looks good."

_ "FUCK!"_ Eddie swore and stood in shock, everything in his hands clattering to the floor.

"Hey…"

"Richie, shit, _shit_. What're you…God, what are you _doing_ here?!" His voice was shaky, and he was dragging in breaths like he was drowning. Eddie's heart was pounding against his ribcage, his limbs numb and useless all at once as he just stood there, gaping at his friend.

His _best_ friend, who was just sitting in his window, staring at him. _Seeing_ him.

"...Slumber party, remember?" Richie said awkwardly after a minute. "I mean, no, obviously you forgot." He cleared his throat and threw his backpack on the floor as he stepped fully into the room.

Eddie was hyperventilating.

"So, uh," Richie cleared his throat again, and gestured to Eddie's skirt, "I'm gonna take a wild guess here and say that's definitely not your mom's?"

Some small, distant part of Eddie that wasn't in shock wanted to answer with _"no, it's your sister's"_, but he found he couldn't actually manage words anymore, his breathing fast and heavy as it was, so he nodded stiffly instead.

Richie nodded back, his eyes wide as he jerked his head, his gaze glued to Eddie's legs. "Right, right. So like. Is that the, uh," Richie paused, swallowing, "the skirt Bev... threw away? The other day?"

Eddie nodded again, his pulse thumping in his throat.

"Huh, thought so," Richie worked his jaw around, measuring Eddie up and down with a strange look in his eyes. "I mean, that day you were kinda… um."

Eddie realized with a sharp pang that this was it. Friendship over. Life over. _Fuck,_ Eddie was so stupid. So fucking stupid and weird and _sick_\--

"It... looks really fuckin' good on you though, Eds," Richie said, and his voice was deep and quiet, "Just. Y'know that, right?"

Eddie gulped. He was floored, his confused heart flipping as Richie began to move closer. "Rich…" he finally managed, his fists clenched painfully at his sides.

"I'm, I have to," Richie started in a daze, then looked down and cursed himself, "Fuck. Do you even," he took a breath, his shoulders dropped and he looked back at Eddie's face, glancing at his lips every so often like he couldn't help it. "Do you even know what you look like right now? Your lips, they're just..."

Eddie felt the air shift, felt his heart change tempo as he drifted forward, his hands reaching out before his mind could catch up.

"No," he whispered, and the words came easy this time, as he grasped Richie's arms, "what do I look like, Trashmouth?"

Richie smiled faintly, closer now, closer than he'd ever been. "Like a wet fucking dream," he rasped, and swept down to press a kiss to Eddie's shuddering mouth.

Eddie's brain short circuited at the point of contact, all systems rewired to _Richie fucking Tozier. _Richie in his hands and against his mouth, his nose pushing against his, his lashes, his glasses, his freckles, his hair curling out against Eddie's cheek. His arms wrapped around Eddie's waist.

"Oh God," he gasped against Richie's lips, which Richie took as an invitation to lick his teeth. "Hey Richie, wait, wait," Eddie said, though his body seemed to want the opposite, his hands clinging to Richie's shoulders and neck, letting the kiss deepen.

Richie tasted like bubblegum and orange soda, like thousands of living bacteria that Eddie _just couldn't give less of a fuck about_ as he kissed him back wantonly.

He was all Eddie ever wanted, after all.

Richie moved them back, until he was sitting on the bed and Eddie had no choice but to follow, refusing to remove his hands and mouth from Richie's.

"Fuck, Kaspbrak," Richie groaned, his hand resting on Eddie's hip where the hiked up skirt met his bare thigh. "No one should be allowed to be this fuckin' pretty."

"Richie..." Eddie felt like he was beet red by this point. Then Richie started kissing down his neck and Eddie sighed, "Do you like me?"

"No," Richie huffed flatly against his jawline, "I'm playing tonsil hockey with you 'cause I find you repulsive. _Yes_, I like you, dweeb."

"Wait." Eddie pulled back, suddenly serious. Richie tried to follow and groaned when he was denied by two fingers to his seeking lips. His own mouth was smudged red by Eddie's, his pupils dilated and cheeks flushed.

Eddie's pulse jumped when he felt Richie kiss his fingers.

"What?" Richie frowned, his hands squeezing Eddie's hips. "I like you, Eds. I said I like you."

"Even like this?" Eddie asked, then thought, as he searched Richie's curious eyes. "Or._..only _like this?"

The answer was important, he could feel it in his bones. It was everything. Eddie felt tense as he waited, awkwardly straddling Richie's lap.

Richie swallowed, his glasses were askew, his eyes dark and serious behind the thick lenses. Their breathing mingled in the silence.

"I like all of you, Spaghetti," Richie finally answered, earnestly, "I always have. I mean, shit. I didn't know I'd like you in a_ skirt_ until, like, ten seconds ago, but I _do."_

He sighed and stared into Eddie's eyes.

"I'll like you any way I can have you," Richie went on, looking nervous. He grabbed Eddie's hands, and leaned in close until their noses touched, but kept his eyes on Eddie's. "Eddie, I like you every second, in any outfit, on any day of the week. Because I fucking _love_ you, Eds, ok? _Love_ love. Like, the for real kind--"

Eddie couldn't take it anymore, he kissed Richie so hard they fell back onto the mattress. Richie's glasses flying down behind the bed as Eddie attacked his face.

"Hey, those're my good pair!" Richie protested weakly, laughing, and gave back as good as he got.

\--

"Richie?" Eddie said shyly when they finally parted. "Hey, I uh... I love you for real, too," he stated softly, blushing and curled against Richie's side on the bed.

Richie blushed, which was a thing Eddie had _never_ seen him do in all the years he'd known him. _Trashmouth_ Richie fucking Tozier _blushing_. For _him_. Eddie couldn't help but kiss his red cheek.

"Cool." Richie grinned, and grabbed Eddie's wrist to kiss the back of his hand, causing Eddie's heart to do that stupid fluttery thing. "So, how do you feel about stilettos?"

**Author's Note:**

> I'm also [thewordsleep](thewordsleep.tumblr.com) on Tumblr :D


End file.
